Joshua Alston: Last News

Joshua Alston “Who’s your favorite artist?” asks Dre (Dominique Fishback) of the characters she meets along her journey in “Swarm,” Prime Video’s clever and fiendish horror satire. She poses the question with a cheerful lilt that belies the menace behind it, much like Ghostface when he conducts targeted phone surveys about the slasher genre in the “Scream” franchise. Dre’s respondents don’t know how high the stakes are, nor that there’s a correct answer: Ni’Jah, a messianic pop princess who bears striking similarities to Beyoncé, right down to the cultish following with zero appetite for dissent. Dre lives a mostly unexamined life in pre-pandemic Houston, fumbling through her 20s without much direction aside from whatever will get her closer to her favorite singer’s inner circle. Her roommate, Marissa (Chloe Bailey), is just as enamored of Ni’Jah, but is hustling as a hair and makeup artist to break into the entertainment field. Dre, meanwhile, bounces between dead-end day jobs when she’s not taking the stage at a gentleman’s club to perform dances that are more esoteric than exotic. Despite working as a stripper, Dre is mystified by sex, a curiosity Marissa’s creeper boyfriend (Damson Idris) uses to manipulate her.

Joshua Alston “Saint X,” Alexis Schaitkin’s acclaimed 2020 novel, has roiling depth beneath its placid surface, much like the pristine waters of the Caribbean island where it takes place. The body of a young American girl washes ashore in those tropical tides, and because her death incites the story, “Saint X” initially cuts the figure of a thriller. Yes, the book slowly unfurls the details behind her untimely demise. But the story isn’t really about what happened, it’s about the grief, recrimination and obsession that consumes the survivors over time. It’s a meditation on trauma, shot through with social commentary and disguised as a nondescript “imperiled woman” beach read. Hulu’s series adaptation of “Saint X” hews closely to its source material, which winds up being as much a curse as a gift. The show also feints at a proper whodunnit, then builds to a nuanced, if anticlimactic conclusion, and all at a lazy river’s pace. That’s all the more disappointing because of how effective it is as a psychological thriller and a character study. Those who prepared for the bait-and-switch by reading the novel will take to the series just fine, as will anyone weary enough of mysteries that they’ve given up attachment to the final reveal. But those who visit “Saint X” expecting a more straightforward narrative might lose interest before it reveals its charms.

Joshua Alston Director Allen Hughes has evolved into a deft and imaginative documentarian, just the latest pleasant surprise in a long, eclectic career. His best-known films are the scripted fare he co-directed with his twin brother Albert, including “Menace II Society” and “Dead Presidents,” which dove deep into the lives of young, disaffected Black men. The brothers dabbled in documentary with 1999’s “American Pimp,” another film about Black men thriving (and suffering, and causing suffering) in a brutal subculture, but the film’s insights were mostly washed out by its prurience. Since then, the Hugheses have pursued solo projects, but Allen found new traction with “The Defiant Ones,” the HBO docuseries chronicling the durable and fruitful partnership between Dr. Dre and Interscope Records founder Jimmy Iovine. The brilliance of that show, which earned a Grammy and five Emmy nods, was in its format and structure. Hughes plots the key points of their professional and personal journeys, from their initial meeting to their eventual $3 billion sale of Beats Audio. Because the hip hop producer and music executive affected so many aspects of their industry at the time, an exploration of their friendship became a microcosmic portrait of a seminal period for American music. 

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The “Willow” TV series is done after just one season at Disney+, Variety has confirmed. The news comes around two months after the high fantasy series aired its eighth and final episode, with the show having debuted in November 2022 and airing until January 2023. “Willow” continued the story of the film of the same name, with Warwick Davis returning for the series in the title role of Willow Ufgood. The show was originally reported as being in the works at Disney+ back in 2019 and ordered to series in late 2020. Along with Davis, the cast of the show included Ruby Cruz, Erin Kellyman, Ellie Bamber, Tony Revolori, Amar Chadha-Patel, Dempsey Bryk, and Joanne Whalley. The official logline for the series states “In a magical world where brownies, sorcerers, trolls, and other mystical creatures flourish, the adventure continues, as an unlikely group of heroes set off on a dangerous quest to places far beyond their home, where they must face their inner demons and come together to save their world.”

Joshua Alston “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” is set in a world of unbridled avarice, ruthless scheming, racy seductions and cold-blooded homicide. So, what’s a nice, classically trained stage actor like Patina Miller doing in a place like this? As it turns out, she’s giving one of the best performances of her esteemed body of work.Miller stars in “Raising Kanan,” one of three crime dramas to spinoff from Starz’s flagship thriller “Power” since it concluded in 2020. Her character, Raquel “Raq” Thomas, is a single mother living on the rough and tumble area of Queens in 1991.

Joshua Alston “Power never dies.” That was the tagline (and obligatory hashtag) used back in early 2020 to tease an ambitious brand expansion of Starz’s popular drug-trade drama, “Power.” As the flagship series wound down, the sizzle trailer insisted that while the show’s antihero protagonist — played by Omari Hardwick — might have drawn his last breath, there was plenty of oxygen left in the franchise. It seemed almost fanciful at the time — four spin-offs announced at once?!? — but three successful shows launched within two years’ time goes beyond proof of concept.